Month: June 2023

I ordered five cozy fleece blankets from Etsy for Edwin and four other high school grads in the neighborhood, and they arrived today. I chose colors to represent where they will be going to college, each with the same words stitched across one corner: Village Strong 22202. I almost got weepy writing each of them a card. How is it possible that these little toddlers with their flushed and sweaty cheeks smeared with ice cream, goldfish crackers clenched in tight little fists are flying the coop?

Whatever ups and downs await them – incompatible roommates, new best friends for life, all-night cram sessions, broken hearts, exhilarating independence – they can wrap a soft and fuzzy hug around them and remember they have a village behind them.

Maxine and her friends are beautifully unselfconscious about the ruckus they are making. They have not lowered their voices around Chris and me, speaking freely and boisterously, happy to reunite after the first few weeks of summer when families ran their separate ways as soon as school let out.

They’ve had snacks in the family room as I made a salad to go with their Dominos pizza and Chris’s and my alternative homemade dinner. They have discussed their summer plans and what summer camps, summer jobs, and family vacations their absent friends are engaged in at the moment.

The roiling cloud of laughter and chatter faded but did not entirely die out as they floated downstairs to the basement with a bowl of Doritos and a bowl of Maxine’s personal favorite, Cape Cod salt and vinegar potato chips.

They spilled forth again when the pizza arrived, more loud chatter and laugher with a low vibration of bass tones emanating from the 16-year-old boys. Down again to the basement and then up again for singing happy birthday and digging into two desserts: Maxine’s favorite, key lime pie, and a new one that caught our interest: chocolate-matcha butter mochi cake. It actually turned out pretty good, despite the fact that I couldn’t find mochiko (sweet rice flour) in the two stores I had time for (I combined what little brown rice flour and cake flour I had).

They are now ensconced back in the basement, watching what I assume to be a horror movie, based on the sudden and irregularly timed shrieks.

Maxine will be 16 tomorrow, and there will be:

Strawberry and Nutella crèpes by Edwin

Salt and vinegar chips, Doritos, strawberry lemonade, and sparkling cider

Friends and pizza

Chocolate-matcha butter mochi cake

Key lime pie

Gifts from Sephora

Hopefully a very happy 16-year-old

Packing for Africa is surreal. As I roll up my clothes and pack them into tight little cubes, I find myself wondering, “Is this the shirt I’ll be wearing when I see my first lion? How small will the plane be to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe?”

I also find myself fretting over certain things, like having my workout routine disrupted for three weeks and leaving the kitties. We may be sitting more than I’m used to, but I’m pretty confident the sights will be amazing. And the cats will be in good hands, but I wish I could explain to them that we’ll be back and that we love them.

We have spent today in Richmond at VCU’s orientation for students and family. Chris and I had a few sessions to attend, some that overlapped with Edwin’s. The overall message taken from today: welcome to the ramily (their mascot is the ram)! Other message from the College of Engineering: screwing up can add a year pretty darn quick. But we’re so glad you’re here!!

Chris and I split off around 5:00 for a rooftop cocktail at the hotel we’re staying in that overlooks the College of Engineering, followed by a delicious Italian dinner of branzino and spaghetti with mussels at Edo’s Squid, and a later visit to Triple Crossing Brewery during a thunderstorm. All of this was within walking distance, and we got lucky with the timing of the storm.

We have a few more sessions tomorrow morning before heading home with our boy. We have him for two more months before making the drop for real.

I love riding my bike around town and through the city. It’s always made me feel connected to where I live. When you get places by bike, you become more familiar with the terrain, have a better sense of how things are laid out, and are simply more up close and personal with the buildings, trees, bridges, twists and turns.

I rode all over campus and town when I went to JMU, always popping my seat off and taking it inside with me; a rash of seat thefts had been plaguing the campus, and I wasn’t about to become another victim. I carried it into my dorm, into class in the bluestone buildings, into Joker’s pub for dollar pitchers night.

When I moved to Portland, Oregon, the most bike-friendly city I had ever seen, I delighted in coasting down the sloping hill toward the river from my little shared bungalow on 26th Ave, over the Morrison Bridge, and up 10 blocks of streets lined with old brick buildings to get to where I waited tables at Old Town Pizza.

Now, several decades later, here I am crossing the Potomac, and riding down the National Mall, in front of the Capitol, behind Union Station, and up across Florida Avenue to get to Union Market. Riding across the city on two tires and powered only by my own effort deepens my connection with a place I have called home since as long as I can remember.

I am reading Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry. I just love her tone and voice: humble, smart, curious, honest. She writes about facing fears and worries about our world and our own insecurities.

When writing about courageous people she has met, people who might appear to us as existing without fear or insecurities, she says that none of them would call themselves fearless; rather, they have developed an ability to live with jeopardy, to remain balanced and able to think clearly in the presence of jeopardy. “They’ve learned how to be comfortably afraid.”

Maintaining a state of being comfortably afraid seems to me like the only sane and productive way to function in this world. You’d be crazy not to be afraid of a whole slew of things, but if you let those fears paralyze you and prevent you from being comfortable, you’ll never be able to help anyone, including yourself.

So, yeah, here’s to being comfortably afraid.

One of my favorite things about the beginning of summer is having seemingly endless time to read books I’ve had my eye on but haven’t had time for.

Maxine and I seized on the break in the rain and walked to the library to pick up her hold, one of the three books she has chosen to read for AP Lit. I walked over to the “grab and go” shelves and plucked off a copy of Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry.

Maxine hasn’t actually been in the library since before COVID (what kind of mother/reading teacher am I?), so she automatically wandered toward the kids section.

“Hold on,” she said. “Where’s the young adult section?” I led her over there and we both perused the shelves, each of us finding something of interest. She opted for a hard copy, and I checked out the ebook and had it sent to my Kindle so I can read it while we’re in Africa without having to pack the actual book.

The librarian at the front desk was very helpful and handed us the log sheet for the summer program. All you have to do is read for any time span for 30 days during the summer and you’ll be awarded two Nats tickets.

Summer reading and baseball. It feels so right.

I felt like we were holding on to the caboose of a train in regard to Edwin’s college application process. I had friends who were way more in the know, alerting me of deadlines, strategies, online groups, etc. Unlike some parents, I had very little appetite for interfering with Edwin’s choices about his classes and extracurriculars in order to boost his chances of getting in to certain engineering schools.

He didn’t end up getting into a few schools we really thought were in the bag. In hindsight, it’s pretty clear why: he chose chamber orchestra and AP French 5 over the higher math and science classes his senior year, choices he was forced to make due to scheduling conflicts. We thought senior year courses wouldn’t matter much, and we let him go with what made him happiest.

I think he would have chosen the school he ended up with, anyway, but it was a bit of an ego blow not to have the choices he thought he would.

Maxine is a whole different story. She has no idea what she is looking for in a college, which is totally normal for a 16-year-old. I am getting out ahead of the process this time. I’ve registered for two college tours in August. They’re two very small colleges in Pennsylvania, the kind of schools with which I have zero familiarity. I want her to have an idea of where she fits in before this train gets moving again.

Edwin is staying in a townhouse between Lewes and Rehoboth for beach week with five friends. I stayed in a grungy motel room with three friends in Ocean City in 1990.

Edwin and his friends have walked and shopped around Rehoboth and strolled the quaint streets of Lewes. I rotated like a rotisserie chicken on the beach, procuring a deep tan, which was in direct conflict with my attempts at rehydrating after drinking cheap beer every night.

Edwin and his friends are taking turns cooking dinner. For his two dinners, he has made moules et frites and shrimp étoufée. I remember microwaving hot pockets at 7-11 and drinking Snapple.

On our last night in Bethany three nights ago, my friends and I took our daughters to Rehoboth for the evening. I texted Edwin to warn him that we would be there and that I would not try to seek him out. He responded that he’d actually like to say hi. I am certain that my reaction would have been different had that been my mom and me back in 1990.

I have to say I made the most of my beach week and came home in one piece. Edwin is making the most of his, as well, with a heck of a lot more class.